MarinerTek named winner of Lake-Geauga Fast Track 50

Lake-Geauga Fast Track 50s named MarinerTek IT Solutions as its “No. 1 Emerging Company for 2012” today.

MarinerTek, which husband and wife Francis and Erica Martin founded in 1996, specializes in server and desktop virtualization, cloud services, application development and IT staff augmentation and helps organizations improve business agility through the use virtualization technologies.

According to Francis Martin, since he moved his business’ focus towards server virtualization and cloud computing, revenue more than doubled because of the “significant boost” and “greater efficiency for the utilization of [one’s] IT investment” that cloud technology provides businesses.

“Virtualization of a server is quite literally the separation of software from the constraints of the hardware,” Martin said. “By not being bound to the physical constraints of one server, the virtual server is able to tap into the resources of the whole collective.”

With private clouds created by server virtualization, MarinerTek could remove and repair a physical resource without disrupting the other servers, according to Francis Martin, who explained that a private cloud could be stored at the business’ physical location or at MarinerTek but said that businesses would always have access to its data.

“We’re not taking the data out of their computer room,” Martin said. “We’re deploying new technology within their existing IT framework that offers them greater flexibility and a higher degree of recoverability in the event of a disaster.”

Lake-Geauga Fast Track 50 started in 1993 and continues today through the efforts of Bill DeBus at The News-Herald, Jen Brawner at Skoda, Minotti & Company, Peter Ferrante at Benjamin F. Edwards Co., Cathie Moss and Gretchen Skok DiSanto at Lakeland Community College and Tom Leenheer at Huntington Bank.

In 2000, the Fast Track 50 Committee added the Lake-Geauga Fast Track 50 Business Hall of Fame and inducts those businesses that are five-year winners.